Nicki Minaj isn’t nearly as wild as she pretends to be. The rapper-singer fancies herself a visionary cross between Missy Elliott and Lady Gaga. Unfortunately, as this second album attests, she is simply a mess.

Remember that uncomfortable, cacophonous performance at this year’s Grammys? It was of the new album’s leadoff track, Roman Holiday, a grating prog-rap opera that features one of the worst choruses of all time: “Take your medication Roman / Take a short vacation Roman / You’ll be okay,” sung in a theatrical, singsong loop. Say what?

In between choruses, Minaj busts her trademark freaky raps, calling herself “the ultimate Svengali” and “a lunatic, and this can’t be cured with no elixir.”

That’s too bad, because there was a time when Minaj’s talent heralded the arrival of a bold new female rapper to broaden the genre’s creative horizons. But if that is what she is still trying to do, she has lost her way.

The first half of this album is devoted to erratic rap tracks. Come on a Cone has her bragging about her credentials, counting how many times she can say the word “b---h” and spewing another insufferable chorus. She settles down somewhat to team up with Cam’ron and Rick Ross on I Am Your Leader, but even Lil Wayne can’t save Roman Reloaded; Drake, Nas and Young Jeezy outshine her on the more serious Champion; while Chris Brown guides her toward safer pop territory on Right by My Side.

The second half of the album finds her turning to crassly mainstream dance-pop. Hit single Starships mixes ravey synths with lightweight rhymes and a hook beckoning you to put your “hands up and touch the sky”; Pound the Alarm follows suit, referencing Ibiza and bad b---hes; and Whip It boasts thinly veiled sex metaphors.

She tones it down in the home stretch, with a few ballads: Marilyn Monroe, a swelling torch song announcing that “sometimes I feel like Marilyn Monroe … at the end of the road”; and the reggae-tinged Gun Shot, featuring Beenie Man.

Strangely, it’s the dance tracks and slow jams that, while the most personality-free, are the least annoying. When left to her own devices, Minaj just doesn’t have the songwriting skills or focus to make music you want to listen to. When she’s constrained to more generic radio fare, at least she has a framework to limit her dalliances.

All thrown together, this album is a jarring mix of styles that will yield some radio hits but does precious little for her in terms of artistic credibility.

It would be difficult for Malian duo Amadou & Mariam to recreate the stunning, near-perfect collage of sounds and styles that yielded their 2004 breakout album Dimanche à Bamako. The new disc, which follows up on the 2008 release Welcome to Mali, adds English artists like Scissor Sisters’ Jake Shears, TV on the Radio’s Tunde Adebimpe and Kyp Malone, Ebony Bones, Amp Fiddler and Theophilus London to the mix, with mostly successful results. The haunting, electric, drone-like sound of Malian blues, with Amadou Bagayoko’s guitar front and centre, courses through the album, underpinning the funky Wily Kataso, the heavy waltz Oh Amadou, the tricky and volatile Metemya and the gentle, sparkling Chérie. Although monotony threatens to set in at points as the tracks begin to blend, fans of the desert jangle – if they can get past the presence of convicted girlfriend killer Bertrand Cantat on many tracks – will appreciate the generally uplifting sound.

Podworthy: Dougou Badia (featuring Santigold)

Bernard Perusse

Amadou & Mariam perform at the Osheaga Music & Arts Festival, which takes place Aug. 3 to 5 at Jean Drapeau Park. For more information, visit www.osheaga.com.

Ian Anderson

Thick as a Brick 2

EMI

4 out of five stars

After 40 years, what could Ian Anderson possibly add to Jethro Tull’s most exaggerated mission statement, the 44-minute opus Thick as a Brick? Nothing, as it turns out. Detractors who misunderstood the original album’s satirical intent have long given up, while true believers have been pre-sold. But those who are even mildly curious should listen to Anderson’s most consistent and rewarding work in many years. Filled with sly musical quotations from the original TAAB and affectionate references to other Tull favourites, this wonderful sequel looks at the different ways the 1972 record’s 10-year-old protagonist Gerald Bostock might have turned out. Along the way, ever-present social dilemmas like economic meltdown, sexual abuse and military missteps are addressed, supported by robust melodies that evoke vintage Tull.

Podworthy: Adrift and Dumbfounded

BP

Dr. John

Locked Down

Nonesuch

4 out of five stars

If the Black Keys are the successors to the White Stripes, maybe Dan Auerbach is also taking a page from Jack White in the producer’s chair. Like White’s work with legends Loretta Lynn and Wanda Jackson, Auerbach’s recasting of New Orleans hero Dr. John in a ragged, psychedelic garage-band setting is mostly inspired. Even songs that would normally be pedestrian blues throwaways, like Kingdom of Izzness and My Children, My Angels, are born as grimy gems and lo-fi masterpieces. The disc is all trashy organ, distorted guitar and electric keyboard funk, with the wondrous drumming of Max Weissenfeldt making every track even edgier. It’s a delight to see a true giant get such an inventive and sympathetic boost in the studio.

Podworthy: Ice Age

BP

Great Lake Swimmers

New Wild Everywhere

Nettwerk

4 out of five stars

Tony Dekker has journeyed a long way from the abandoned silo where Great Lake Swimmers’ 2003 self-titled debut was recorded. The journey hasn’t just been geographical. The first Swimmers album recorded mostly in a conventional studio, New Wild Everywhere isn’t the first to feature full-band arrangements, but this project now feels more like a near-equal partnership than ever. Violinist and harmonist Miranda Mulholland is an indispensable presence not just on Easy Come Easy Go – the closest the Swimmers have come to a good-time rocker – but on The Great Exhale, a gentle ballad about a volcanic awakening. And if anyone doubted the group’s natural beauty could survive the transition to conventional recording, you can almost hear grain fields ripple in the sweet-natured Changes with the Wind.

Our Lady Peace hasn’t always been given enough credit for its adventurousness – say what you will about the strobe-lit bombast of 2002’s Gravity, but it wasn’t a rehash of earlier albums. On Curve, the credit is harder than ever to withhold: from Allowance’s android rhythm section to the spoken samples that bond the ruminative Mettle, there’s a sense of a group itching to redefine itself as a borderline-experimental outfit. Borderline because the 10-ton hooks are still there in Heavyweight and As Fast as You Can, and because Raine Maida’s tender/tough vocals still forge a deep connection with the masses. Guitarist Steve Mazur emerges as the MVP here, expanding his reach far beyond previous workaday solos and economical riffs, but top marks all around for a band that isn’t hesitant to demand more from itself and from its audience.

Podworthy: Allowance

JZ

Of Monsters and Men

My Head Is an Animal

Universal

4 out of five stars

With a lyric sheet populated by howling beasts and screaming owls and anthropomorphic landscapes, one imagines Of Monsters and Men communing with nature in a cave. It must have been a cave stocked with Arcade Fire albums. The Salvation Army band jubilation, the vigorous boy/girl harmonies, the crashing percussion – it all might have sounded second-hand if it weren’t for the Icelandic sextet’s undeniable lust for life, endearing naïveté and a poignant underlying sadness: the carnival joy in Little Talks is of the dance-to-keep-from-crying variety. Even some of the quieter moments sound colossal: Dirty Paws’ wordless chorus could have been born on the seaside cliffs pictured in the liner notes. Congratulations to anyone who scored tickets for the upcoming Sala Rossa show; cramming songs of this size in a venue of that size contravenes the laws of physics.

Podworthy: Dirty Paws

JZ

Of Monsters and Men perform April 11 at La Sala Rossa, 4848 St. Laurent Blvd., with Lay Low. The show is sold out.

Misstress Barbara

Many Shades of Grey

MapleMusic

4 out of five stars

Montreal’s electro-pop queen follows the brooding tones of 2009’s I’m No Human with this infectiously poppy second album. She uses her extensive DJ background to create an array of techno and house backbeats over which her soft singing voice evokes a mix of self-reflection and celebration. While there are anthemic hooks aplenty, there is also atmosphere. Introspective opener It Won’t Matter Anymore has an airy drum-and-bass vibe; Walk On By is a list of complaints with attitude; and the title track has a wistful tone that pays tribute to heartache without getting lost in it. This is the kind of inspired dance-pop that Madonna is too busy keeping up with the kids to conceive. But for a veteran club DJ with soul and pop smarts? No problem.

Podworthy: As Long as I Have You

TD

Misstress Barbara launches Many Shades of Grey with a performance Tuesday at 5:30 p.m. at Le National, 1220 Ste. Catherine St. E. Admission is free. To reserve tickets, send an email to rsvp.spectramusique@equipespectra.ca with “Misstress Barbara” in the subject line.

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